About Publications

Publications from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine provide objective and straightforward advice to decision makers and the public. This site includes Health and Medicine Division (HMD) publications released after 1998.A complete list of HMD’s publications from its establishment in 1970 to the present is available as a PDF.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, acting through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, has asked the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene an ad hoc committee to identify social risk factors that affect the health outcomes of Medicare beneficiaries and methods to account for these factors in Medicare payment programs. The committee’s work will be conducted in phases and will produce five brief consensus reports.

The Institute of Medicine, at the request of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and with guidance from the IOM's Standing Committee on Aerospace Medicine and the Medicine of Extreme Environments, has established the Committee to Review NASA's Evidence Reports on Human Health Risks.

On April 22, 2013, the roundtable held a workshop at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, titled Achieving Health Equity via the Affordable Care Act: Promises, Provisions, and Making Reform a Reality for Diverse Patients. Sponsored and hosted by the Connecticut Health Foundation, the workshop addressed many issues surrounding the ACA, including expansion of coverage, delivery systems, and access points; service delivery and payment reform, including the patient-centered medical home model; public–private partnerships; and challenges to the safety net.

The Department of Veterans Affairs requested that the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conduct a study to respond to Public Law 110-389 enacted in 2008 to determine the incidence and prevalence, as well as the risk of developing multiple sclerosis and other neurologic diseases as a result of service in the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf and post 9/11 Global Operations theaters.

The proliferation of consumer-facing technology and personal health information technology has grown steadily over the past decade, and has certainly exploded over the past several years. The goal of this workshop was to explore health literate practices in health information technology and then provide and consider the ramifications of this rapidly growing field on the health literacy of users.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has several provisions that could greatly improve the behavioral health of children and adolescents in the United States. To explore how the ACA and other aspects of health care reform can support innovations to improve children’s behavioral health and sustain those innovations over time, the Forum on Promoting Children’s Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Health held a workshop in Washington, DC, on April 1–2, 2015, titled “Opportunities to Promote Children’s Behavioral Health: Health Care Reform and Beyond.”

On July 29–30, 2014, the Institute of Medicine Forum on Public–Private Partnerships for Global Health and Safety held a workshop on approaches to universal health coverage and occupational health and safety for informal sector workers in developing countries.

Since 1975, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has paid benefits to poor children with disabilities through the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. In 2013, approximately 1.3 million children received SSI disability benefits, roughly half of whom qualified primarily due to a mental disorder. In response to considerable and recurring interest in the growth and sustainability of the SSI program for children, SSA commissioned the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to identify trends in the prevalence of mental disorders among U.S. children and to compare those trends to changes observed in the SSI childhood disability population.

Health Literacy: Past, Present, and Future commemorates the 2004 release and features invited presentations and discussions of the progress made in the field of health literacy since that time, explores the current state of the field, and discusses possible directions for future health literacy efforts.

The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a committee of relevant experts to review selected psychological tests, including SVTs and PVTs, and to evaluate the value of and provide guidance on the use of such testing in the adjudication of claims submitted to the SSA Disability Programs.